


count the lights on the horizon

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22684567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Mike has a proposition. Harvey has some conditions.
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 145





	count the lights on the horizon

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/ea9e6d57ad47db146353f8f3f6a75755/tumblr_owa7gpOmqV1uqderwo1_540.gifv) gif. Set sometime vaguely late Season 2 or early Season 3.

“Harvey Specter, my most wonderfully generous boyfriend of one year and exactly eighteen days.”

“Try that again and the only thing you’ll be calling me is ‘boss.’”

“Kinky.” Mike drops down on the sofa, crossing his legs and setting his arm across the backrest. “Can we talk?”

Humming under his breath, Harvey thumbs through a dog-eared copy of the Barbri handbook sitting beside his computer. “You’re breaking up with me.”

“You kidding, I’m eighteen days overdue for an upgrade.” Mike drums his fingers against the cushions. “No, seriously, I uh. I want to ask you something.”

Whether it’s the sudden hesitancy in his voice, or the fact that he’s obviously not kidding around, or a third thing Mike hasn’t thought of, Harvey deigns to stop messing with him, closing the handbook and leaning back in his chair as he laces his fingers behind his head.

“Hit me.”

Turning to look out the window, Mike watches as a far-away airplane disappears across the horizon.

“So I’ve been thinking about this for awhile,” he hedges.

Harvey unfolds his hands and sets them on his desk, and Mike didn’t mean to worry him, but maybe he should get to the point already.

“And?”

Mike clears his throat.

“I think we should move in together.”

Harvey leans into his armrest and doesn’t say anything.

Wow. Okay, it wasn’t _that_ bad of an idea. Was it? No.

Was it?

Seriously, it’s not like Mike was expecting him to start crying, or drop down on one knee and pull a ring out of his pocket, and to be fair, he does narrow his eyes a little bit, but he doesn’t even say anything. He doesn’t _do_ anything.

After a decent amount of time, Mike clears his throat again.

“So,” he says. “Uh. Thoughts?”

Harvey tents his fingers in front of his chin.

“Do I get my own closet,” he asks, “or are we gonna share?”

“What?”

Harvey smiles indulgently. “When I move in,” he says. “I have to warn you, if you’re expecting me to start with a drawer and work my way up, we might have a problem.”

Mike blinks slowly.

“Wait,” he says. “Hang on, aren’t— Aren’t I moving in with you? Into your giant condo that you’ve had since forever? The symbol of all your success and accomplishment? Your magic condo?”

Harvey scoffs. “I think you just answered your own question.”

“I…don’t think I did.”

“My giant condo?” Harvey repeats. “That I’ve had since forever?”

“Still not seeing the problem.”

Shaking his head, Harvey leans back, gripping the edge of his desk to keep his chair from sliding across the floor. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“If you could just say what you mean for once in your life, that would be great.”

“Sorry, but we only hire from Harvard.”

“ _Harvey._ ”

Mike glares at him, and Harvey smirks.

“I bought that place a long time ago,” he says, “when I was living a very different life from the one I’m living now.”

“What, you mean all the one-night stands?”

“When I wanted _different things,_ ” he says. “I had different priorities. And then I met you, and…something changed. _I_ changed. And I don’t think I want to change back.”

Wait. Wait just one goddamn second.

“That doesn’t mean you have to move out of your apartment,” Mike says.

“Yeah I do.” Harvey shakes his head. “If we’re going to do this, then let’s do it.”

Mike frowns, drumming his fingers against the sofa cushions and trying to figure out what exactly is going on.

“You mean, like…buy a new place?”

“I mean like move into a place that feels less like a status symbol and more like a home.”

Mike keeps frowning and drumming his fingers, and Harvey presses his lips together as he tries not to smile, or possibly sneer.

“I mean I’ll move into your place.”

Wait a second, that’s not how this is supposed to go at _all._

“Mine will sell for a lot more than yours,” Harvey says airily, “and I don’t have as much stuff to move as you do.”

What the hell is happening right now?

“So, how’s this weekend? Or do you need a few more days to vacuum the rugs?”

Mike blinks a bit stupidly.

“It’s…clean.”

Harvey quirks his lips in a fleeting little grin. “I’ll start packing tonight,” he says. “Saturday?”

It occurs to Mike that his mouth is hanging open for no particular reason, and he hurries to close it.

Harvey smirks. “Great. In the meantime, I’ll need your notes from the Dillon deposition by three.”

Mike nods, groping around for a secure enough hold to push himself up off the sofa as Harvey turns back to the Barbri. Before he quite figures out what’s happened, Mike finds himself idling outside the door of his own office, but it doesn’t make much sense, standing here like a fool, so he pulls the door open and steps inside where at least he won’t be in anyone else’s way.

So. Harvey is moving into his apartment this Saturday.

Okay, well, time to start clearing out the dresser.

\---

Mike means to clear out the dresser. Really he does. He plans for it and everything.

It’s just that he spends most of Wednesday afternoon writing up his notes from the Dillon deposition, and then the rest of the day preparing for the Troost deposition, which, between going to the thing itself and then writing up _those_ notes, takes up basically all day Thursday, and just as he’s about to finish up and go home at a reasonable hour, he realizes that Troost is lying out her ass about pretty much everything, so there goes the evening there, and then on Friday morning he has the bright idea to double check his notes from the Dillon deposition again and realizes she must have been lying _too,_ and the point is that it’s not his fault his apartment isn’t prepared for Harvey to move in this weekend, it’s just that his job is demanding as hell and everyone he has to deal with is a goddamn sociopath.

Harvey gets it.

When Monday rolls around and Mike casually lets it slip that he didn’t spend the weekending preparing his apartment so much as biking around Brooklyn and taking pictures of famous doors, Harvey gets it a little less.

“Look,” Harvey says, cornering Mike at the bathroom sink as he washes his hands, “I get it if you’re having second thoughts.”

“I’m not,” Mike says, because he’s not, he’s really not. “Last week was just crazy.”

“Uh huh.” Harvey leans against the counter. “If you’re afraid I don’t want to move in together, you shouldn’t be.”

“I’m not,” Mike repeats, turning the tap off and shaking his hands into the basin. “I was just busy.”

“Pretending you’re in Amsterdam?”

“I needed to get my mind off of work!”

Harvey raises his hands and takes a step back toward the door. “Whatever you say.” He smiles charitably. “I’m just making sure we’re on the same page.”

“We are!”

Harvey smiles again, and Mike scowls.

“We _are._ ”

“I believe you.”

“You should move in this weekend.”

Harvey seems honestly surprised by the demand, startling at Mike’s sudden fervor and determination, and Mike figures he probably shouldn’t feel quite so cocky about that, but to be fair, it’s not like it happens very often.

“Should I,” Harvey says. Mike nods firmly.

“Yes.”

As Harvey leans back, crossing his arms over his chest and looking him square in the eye, Mike can’t help feeling like some poor trial adversary about to get his ass handed to him, or a witness for the defence who’s just accidentally admitted to committing murder and hasn’t quite realized it yet. It’s not a perfect analogy, their goals ultimately being the same and them genuinely caring about one another and all that, but the effect is similarly unnerving.

Finally, Harvey nods, unfolding his arms and clapping Mike on the shoulder.

“I’ll be there.”

Mike nods back.

“Good.”

Harvey pats his arm.

“Get back to work.”

Raising his hand to his forehead, Mike offers a solemn salute as Harvey chuckles and walks out the door.

Okay. So Harvey’s moving in this weekend.

Take two.

\---

Tuesday night, Mike boxes up about a quarter of his clothes to donate to the Robin Hood Foundation, which doesn’t clear out nearly enough room for everything Harvey will likely bring along with him, but it’s a start.

Wednesday afternoon, he gets caught up in the Dillon-Troost case again and falls into bed at about twelve forty-two before the coming weekend even crosses his mind.

Thursday night, he starts cleaning out the hall closet.

He doesn’t make it very far.

\---

“What time should I come by tomorrow?”

Mike quirks the corner of his mouth around the highlighter cap wedged between his teeth.

“Whenever you’re finished driving your bed to the dump.”

Harvey cocks one of his eyebrows. “Wanna try that again in English this time?”

Spitting the cap into his hand, Mike grins brightly. “Whenever's good for you.”

“Uh huh.” Harvey saunters up to Mike’s desk and lowers his eyes to the papers sprawled across it. “You’re not gonna need another weekend off to recover after all this?”

“Excuse me, I’m a professional.”

“Yeah, a professional fraud.”

Sparing a moment to pander to the tired joke, Mike shakes his head, tensing his jawline and looking up at Harvey sternly.

“I want to do this,” he says. “I’m ready.”

Harvey gives him a funny look at the assertion, pursing his lips in a puzzled sort of frown, but Mike keeps staring him down, refusing to give even an inch. After a few seconds’ pause, Harvey takes a step back, shrugging as though he can’t be bothered to pay any more mind to the abrupt shift in Mike’s demeanor.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll be there at ten.”

Mike nods. “Ten o’clock.”

Not quite managing to entirely shed his suspicious expression, Harvey takes another couple of steps backwards before he turns to walk back to his own office, and Mike takes a deep breath of slightly stale air and glances over his shoulder with the mildly bitter remorse that his office windows are permanently fastened shut.

On second thought, he probably doesn’t want to let the rain in.

\---

A loud knock sounds at the door at eleven fifteen, or maybe nine thirty or something like that, Mike isn’t really keeping track of time. Glancing down at his watch, he finds that it’s ten o’clock exactly, which, that being the time Harvey said he’d be by, he really should have guessed. He wonders for a second why Harvey didn’t just open the door himself, although maybe he isn’t sure the apartment is ready for him and he doesn’t want to be rude or imposing.

Mike looks around at the mess spilling out of the closet and smiles grimly.

Fair enough.

Pushing himself up out of the clutter, he skids across the floor to the front door and pulls it open to Harvey’s disapproving frown.

“You know, the peephole comes standard for a reason.”

“Spying on the neighbors?”

Harvey’s lip twitches. “Cute. You wanna give me a hand with this?”

Mike peers around Harvey to the bags by his feet. Three suitcases; that can’t be all his stuff, but then, it’s not like they’ve sat down to map out how many of Harvey’s dishes are going to fit into the kitchen cabinets.

“I cleared out some space in the dresser in the bedroom,” Mike says, leaning down to pick up one of the bags. “But I think we’re going to need to turn the bathroom into a closet if you’re gonna have room for all your suits.”

“Well,” Harvey grunts as he bends over to retrieve the other two bags and follow Mike inside, “I knew there’d be sacrifices.”

“Hey hey hey,” Mike warns, making his way toward the bedroom, “you already promised me you were into this.”

“I’m moving in, I’m not helping you rob a bank.”

“All I know is, finally I get to kill somebody.”

Smirking, Mike looks over his shoulder for Harvey’s retort, but Harvey doesn’t seem terribly interested in giving one.

Mike laughs uncomfortably. “What?”

Setting his bags down in the corner, Harvey reaches back to close the door behind him and narrows his eyes.

“What happened here?”

“What?”

Mike watches with a nervous grin as Harvey walks carefully toward the closet, stepping as though he’s waiting for the floor to drop out from under him.

“I thought you said you were ready.”

Mike takes a step toward him. “Are you mad at me or something?” he asks. “Because I cleared out the dresser.”

Pressing his lips together in a narrow line, Harvey surveys the mess scattered across the floor. Mike watches, his breathing gone shallow as Harvey kneels down and picks up a long garland of eucalyptus coiled around a bundle of fake calla lilies.

“These from your old place in Brooklyn?”

Did this green plastic hang from the ceiling over your discount IKEA cabinets and your plywood dining table chairs? Did you put these faded silk flowers on your windowsill and pretend you still lived in a nice suburban split-level with your mom and your dad? Did they remind you of things that are alive, did they trick you into believing that some things never die?

Mike takes the garland from his hand and sets it back down on the floor.

It’s nothing, really.

“Grammy had them in her room at the home.”

Harvey arches his eyebrows delicately.

“Oh.”

Mike sticks his hands into his pockets.

It’s nothing.

“How about this?”

A little more suspicious, a little more knowing, Harvey holds up a white and gold throw pillow with thick tufts of fringe along the seams.

Mike reaches to grab it from him.

“I had it with me at college.”

“Yeah?”

Mike tosses the pillow onto the couch. “No.”

You already knew that.

Resting his hands on his bent knee, Harvey looks down at the floor.

“Mike,” he says.

Mike steps around the pile of stuff to stand in front of the bedroom door.

“Yeah?”

Harvey looks at the stuff for awhile, and then back up at Mike’s impassive stare.

“When was the last time you looked at any of these things?”

Mike taps his socked foot against a small jade dog statue, and it falls over on its side.

“This morning.”

“Before that.”

“Yesterday.”

“Mike.”

Harvey wants him to say that he looks at them every day. Harvey wants him to say that he knows every piece of garbage in this closet inside and out, that every one of them has a special place on a special shelf and that there’s order to the madness, order that he’s destroyed by trying to clear out space for a new chapter, a next phase of life. Harvey wants him to say that everything he’s kept has meaning, that every one of these little baubles and trinkets has a story behind it that’s worth telling, and telling again.

Harvey wants him to say that everything here makes sense.

Mike kneels down on the floor and picks up the silk flowers.

“I don’t know.”

He does, though. Two hundred and eighty-eight days, it’s been. Forty-one weeks and one day, exactly.

Harvey pushes away a stack of books to make room on the floor and sits.

“How long has it been?”

Mike picks at the flower’s fraying edges.

“Long enough.”

It should’ve been, anyway. Or so you’d think.

Harvey picks up the little jade dog.

“What’s this?”

It’s nothing. It’s nothing. None of this is anything.

Mike sits down and drops his hands into his lap.

“My parents got it in Arizona,” he says. “Their honeymoon didn’t really get the whole ‘newlywed’ phase out of their systems, so right after they got back from Italy, they did the whole Grand Canyon mules and river rafting thing. So that is either a genuine Navajo artifact, or a genuine Chinese knockoff.”

Harvey turns it over and holds it up to his eyes. “Yeah?”

“My dad said they just got it ‘cause they thought it was neat.” Mike props his chin on his fist. “Grammy always said it was the real deal, but I don’t know if she knew something we didn’t or she just decided it was true because she wanted it to be.”

“Mm.” Harvey sets the dog down and picks up a frame about the size of a piece of printer paper. “How about this?”

“Needlepoint, right?”

Harvey turns it around to show him the artwork. “Looks like it.”

Mike smiles wistfully. “Grammy had this old friend from college who decided she wanted to be a folk artist,” he says with the muted tint of nostalgia. “She gave that to my grandparents as a wedding present. I remember,” he laughs, “we had this modernist painting in our bathroom, this beach scene that I always thought looked like it’d been done by a ten year old, but my mom wouldn’t let me take it down because it was a present from Grammy’s friend Jackie, and she said that when I was really little, I always liked it when Jackie came over to visit, because she’d bring me all these different art supplies, painting stuff and printing stuff and embroidery stuff and just, everything, and then her husband quit his job and they moved back to Texas.”

“Birthplace of the self-taught genius.”

“I have no idea what ever happened to her.”

It’s difficult to know what to say when a person says a thing like that. Sometimes, the right answer is sympathies; sometimes it’s platitudes, “I’m sure she’s doing well” or something like that. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what the answer is, because the question wasn’t really asked, and the conversation is meant to end unfinished.

Harvey looks up as Mike absently strokes the calla lilies.

“How about those?”

Harvey wants everything to have a story.

Mike picks up the eucalyptus leaves and winds them around his wrist.

“I got them at Pottery Barn when Grammy moved into the nursing home.”

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if everything had meaning. They may not be the wisest of men, but they know better than that.

Harvey hums softly.

“Those rooms can get pretty grim.”

Mike clicks his tongue against his teeth.

“Yeah.”

I did the best I could, you know. Those days are long gone now, but I hope you remember that, wherever you are.

Wish me luck.

“Mike.”

I did the best I could.

Harvey sets the needlepoint down.

“Should we buy a new place?”

A place that doesn’t have a story? A place that doesn’t have any memories?

A place that wasn’t meant for someone else?

Mike slides the eucalyptus off of his arm with a thin smile. If only things could be so easy.

“I don’t think that’s gonna cut it.”

Harvey mirrors his solemn grin, reaching across the discarded plastic vines to grasp his hand.

“You still wanna go ahead with this?”

Mike looks down and jostles their joined hands restively.

“Yeah,” he says, “I do.”

“You sure?”

How to explain that leaving would be some kind of betrayal he can’t begin to understand? The abandonment of a woman who will never know the difference?

Mike looks up at the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen. The hall closet spilled all across the floor.

“It feels like this is all I have left, you know?” He smiles up at the ceiling. “Even though she never got to live here, even though I never got to tell her about it, it’s like…”

Like I’m trying to live a life that was never mine. Like I’m trying to live in a future that will never come to be, and a past I can’t let go.

Harvey rubs his thumb gently over the back of Mike’s hand.

“Like she’d want you to have it?”

Mike looks down at the floor.

“Forget it.”

“Mike.”

Mike pulls their clasped hands to his chest, and Harvey slides a little closer.

“I know,” Mike says. “I know, it’s stupid.”

“No.” Harvey crooks his finger under Mike’s chin and tips his face up. “No, it’s not. It’s… It’s grieving.”

Two hundred and eighty-eight days of grieving. So how long is long enough?

“Mike, if you want to stay here, we will.”

Mike lowers his gaze and shakes his head a little.

“I know you don’t want to.”

“Mike,” Harvey tilts his face up again, “it was my idea.”

Mike smiles weakly.

“I can’t keep all this stuff anymore, can I?”

I can’t ignore the life I have for the one I think I want. I can’t keep waiting for these feelings to go away, I can’t be so spoiled that having everything in the world still isn’t enough.

Harvey slides his hand around the back of Mike’s neck. “How about you and I get going on this tomorrow?”

Furrowing his brow in a flimsy attempt at levity, Mike looks around at the debris scattered across the floor.

“All of it?”

Harvey presses his thumb to the corner of Mike’s jaw.

“Gotta start somewhere.”

It had to happen sooner or later. You’ll have to turn that page eventually, you’ll have to start the next chapter of this story. Point the future in a new direction, and maybe shine a new light on the past, if you’re lucky.

Mike lets go of Harvey’s hand and strokes his finger down the little jade dog’s back.

“I miss her.”

You know how it is. You’ve been where I am.

He leans into Harvey’s hand, and Harvey smiles softly.

“I know you do.”

I know you’ve hurt like me.

Mike sighs.

“Is it ever going to go away?”

Harvey shakes his head. “No,” he says, “it’s not. But it’s not going to consume you forever, and you’re going to figure out how to keep living your life, and you’re going to be okay.”

One of these days.

Mike nods.

“I guess I’ve gotta start somewhere.”

Harvey nods. “Tomorrow,” he says, clasping Mike’s hand between both of his. “It’ll be easier after a good night’s sleep.”

“It’s ten thirty in the morning.”

“Good, so you’ve got plenty of time to help me unpack.”

Mike laughs, and Harvey stands.

“You’re gonna get through this,” he says, pulling Mike up after him. “And I’ll be right here, the whole time.”

“Promise?”

Dragging him forward, Harvey presses his lips to Mike’s forehead.

“Promise.”

And Mike knows better than to believe in words like that, in words like “promise” and “forever.” He can say things, offer some things and ask for others in return, but there’s no telling what’s going to happen next, from here on to tomorrow, and then the day after that, and the one after that. He knows better. He’s seen it.

But Harvey has too, and he knows just as well, and he said it anyway. He said it and it sounded like the truth, like something Mike can believe in this time, even though he knows better. Even though he’s learned this lesson too many times before.

Mike wraps his arms around Harvey’s shoulders and holds him tight.

He’s never really stopped believing, even though he knows better. He probably never will.

They all deserve to be happy every once in awhile.

**Author's Note:**

> “Hey, we can’t leave here without turning one little valve.”  
> “Yeah, it’d be like going to Amsterdam and not taking a walking tour of famous doors.”  
> —Bart and Milhouse, _The Simpsons_ , “We’re on the Road to D’oh-where” (s17e11)
> 
> “I guess we’re going after John and Russel. I can’t believe they’re Russian spies. Can you?”  
> “All I know is, finally I get to kill somebody.”  
> —Cruiser and Psycho, _Stripes_ (1981)
> 
> I approximated the objects in Mike’s closet based on some low f-stop screenshots of Edith’s room from the pilot. The stories attached to them have absolutely no canonical basis.
> 
> Feel free to say hi on [tumblr](https://statusquoergo.tumblr.com)!


End file.
